News

The Barbara Lee & Elihu Harris Lecture Series announces 2018 lectures

Please call our offices today at 510-434-3988 to RSVP, or to become a sponsor, volunteer, or help us spread the good word on these most dynamic public lecture opportunities!

ANITA HILL, Saturday March 10, 2018, Oakland Marriott Hotel

“Anita Hill changed the conversation on workplace bias and harassment…she unleashed a wave of women running for office.” The SFChronicle, April 2017.

An attorney and academic, Anita Hill is a leading proponent for women’s rights, workforce equity, and feminism. The youngest of 13 children of Albert and Erma Hill, Anita Hill hails from Arkansas family farmers, her great-grandparents and her maternal grandfather, born into slavery. Hill attended Oklahoma State University, then Yale Law School where she graduated with honors and is now a University Professor of Social Policy, Law, and Women’s Studies at Brandeis University and a faculty member of Brandeis’ Heller School for Social Policy and Management.

Hill is the author of three books, Speaking Truth to Power, Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home and a tribute to Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court Justice who preceded Clarence Thomas, titled A Tribute to Thurgood Marshall: A Man Who Broke with Tradition on Issues of Race and Gender.

She became an attorney-adviser to Clarence Thomas who served as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, then worked for Thomas when he became Chairman at the US EEOC. Hill later openly testified in Senate Confirmation hearings to Thomas’ workforce sexual harassment history, making her a national figure for women speaking truth to power on matters relating to workforce bias and fairness.

The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II is Senior Pastor of the Greenleaf Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Goldsboro, North Carolina, President and Senior Lecturer at Repairers of the Breach, and a member of the College of Affirming Bishops. Bishop Barber is also architect of the Forward Together Moral Movement that gained national acclaim with its Moral Monday protests in 2013. These weekly actions drew tens of thousands of North Carolinians and other moral witnesses to the state legislature. More than 1,050 nonviolent protesters were arrested for acts of civil disobedience.

A highly sought after speaker, Bishop Barber has keynoted hundreds of national and state conferences, including the 2016 Democratic National Convention; “Shock the Heart of America”. He has spoken to a wide variety of audiences including national unions, fraternities and sororities, motorcycle organizations, gang banger, drug dealer redemption conferences, women’s groups, economic policy voting rights LGBTQ groups, environmental and criminal justice groups, small organizing committees of domestic workers, fast food workers, Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists and others.

Bishop Barber served 12 years as President of the North Carolina NAACP, the largest state conference in the South. He sits on the National NAACP Board of Directors.

A former Mel King Fellow at MIT, Bishop Barber is currently Visiting Professor of Public Theology and Activism at Union Theological Seminary and Senior Fellow at Auburn Seminary. He is regularly featured in media outlets such as MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post and The Nation. Bishop Barber is the 2015 recipient of the Puffin Award and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award.

He is the author of Forward Together (Chalice Press), a collection of Moral Monday sermons, and the best-selling The Third Reconstruction: How A Moral Movement Is Overcoming The Politics Of Fear And Division (Beacon Press).

The Barbara Lee & Elihu Harris Lecture Series announces 2018 lectures

Please call our offices today at 510-434-3988 to RSVP, or to become a sponsor, volunteer, or help us spread the good word on these most dynamic public lecture opportunities!

ANITA HILL, Saturday March 10, 2018, Oakland Marriott Hotel

“Anita Hill changed the conversation on workplace bias and harassment…she unleashed a wave of women running for office.” The SFChronicle, April 2017.

An attorney and academic, Anita Hill is a leading proponent for women’s rights, workforce equity, and feminism. The youngest of 13 children of Albert and Erma Hill, Anita Hill hails from Arkansas family farmers, her great-grandparents and her maternal grandfather, born into slavery. Hill attended Oklahoma State University, then Yale Law School where she graduated with honors and is now a University Professor of Social Policy, Law, and Women’s Studies at Brandeis University and a faculty member of Brandeis’ Heller School for Social Policy and Management.

Hill is the author of three books, Speaking Truth to Power, Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home and a tribute to Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court Justice who preceded Clarence Thomas, titled A Tribute to Thurgood Marshall: A Man Who Broke with Tradition on Issues of Race and Gender.

She became an attorney-adviser to Clarence Thomas who served as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, then worked for Thomas when he became Chairman at the US EEOC. Hill later openly testified in Senate Confirmation hearings to Thomas’ workforce sexual harassment history, making her a national figure for women speaking truth to power on matters relating to workforce bias and fairness.

The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II is Senior Pastor of the Greenleaf Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Goldsboro, North Carolina, President and Senior Lecturer at Repairers of the Breach, and a member of the College of Affirming Bishops. Bishop Barber is also architect of the Forward Together Moral Movement that gained national acclaim with its Moral Monday protests in 2013. These weekly actions drew tens of thousands of North Carolinians and other moral witnesses to the state legislature. More than 1,050 nonviolent protesters were arrested for acts of civil disobedience.

A highly sought after speaker, Bishop Barber has keynoted hundreds of national and state conferences, including the 2016 Democratic National Convention; “Shock the Heart of America”. He has spoken to a wide variety of audiences including national unions, fraternities and sororities, motorcycle organizations, gang banger, drug dealer redemption conferences, women’s groups, economic policy voting rights LGBTQ groups, environmental and criminal justice groups, small organizing committees of domestic workers, fast food workers, Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists and others.

Bishop Barber served 12 years as President of the North Carolina NAACP, the largest state conference in the South. He sits on the National NAACP Board of Directors.

A former Mel King Fellow at MIT, Bishop Barber is currently Visiting Professor of Public Theology and Activism at Union Theological Seminary and Senior Fellow at Auburn Seminary. He is regularly featured in media outlets such as MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post and The Nation. Bishop Barber is the 2015 recipient of the Puffin Award and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award.

He is the author of Forward Together (Chalice Press), a collection of Moral Monday sermons, and the best-selling The Third Reconstruction: How A Moral Movement Is Overcoming The Politics Of Fear And Division (Beacon Press).

On July 1st, we met with the League of Women Voters (LWV) of Olympia, WA. The LWV is a 94 year old league. It was founded six months before the 19th amendment was ratified and granted women the right to vote. The League was designed to aid and motivate women in their new found responsibility as first time voters. In present day, the League is a non-partisan organization that believes citizens should be civically engaged within their communities. During their visit to the Jack O’Dell Educational Center, we discussed what it takes to be a good citizen. We believe that a good citizen has the ability to empathize with others, loves to experience life in order to learn, as well as keep hope alive in their hearts. What do you think it takes to be a good citizen?

Bob Moses served as Director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) Mississippi Voter Registration Project from 1961-1964, and was a lead organizer for the “Mississippi Freedom Summer.” Today his work seeks a national response to establish the fundamental right of every child to a quality public school education.

Co-produced by Merritt College and the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center

Civil rights attorney Fred Gray will be the keynote speaker at the Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series on Saturday. (Courtesy of the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center)

By Lou Fancher

During the Civil Rights Movement, attorney and preacher Fred Gray practiced patience, peace, and unflagging activism, which still resonate today.

Gray brings his “Where do we go from here?” message Saturday to the Bay Area as featured speaker at the Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series at Oakland Marriott City Center.Patience was the strategy Gray used in the early 1950s, when he left his home in Montgomery, Alabama, a state where black students were barred from entering law school, to attend Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

He earned his degree in 1954 and returned to open a law office in his hometown, determined to eliminate public school segregation in the state. A dedication to peaceful protest and activism were key tactics as Gray tackled civil rights issues beyond education institution reforms. In 1955, he successfully served as the lawyer to Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin and the Montgomery Improvement Association during the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Defending Martin Luther King Jr. on tax evasion charges in 1960, Gray argued and won cases that allowed the Selma to Montgomery March to proceed (depicted by Cuba Gooding Jr. in the 2014 film “Selma”).